Great Internships

 Image: Met Museum

Anyone that's been through a Museum Studies Program is familiar with the museum internship. Often highly recommended, but more often required, internships for Museum Studies programs are billed as a way to develop practical skills in a museum while using the knowledge gained from coursework. In some cases this is true, while other internships do not offer the same kind of experience.

Personally, I have had great internships and I have had some that definitely did not match my idea of a good internship. This has prompted me to determine what makes a great internship. Currently, I am working with a colleague to conduct a study of what interns believe make great internships and what intern managers believe make a great internship. We hope to uncover any disparities and get an idea of how internships can be designed for the best possible experience for both the interns and managers.

As someone who has been an intern and now someone who manages interns, I have a basic hypothesis of what I think makes a great internship:

1. Practical On-the-Job Training: This is useful for both the intern and manager. The intern will receive experience they can put on their resume and the manager will receive a worker they can trust to perform basic tasks.
2. Opportunities for Special Projects: Most interns are on the cutting edge of theory and practice from their coursework, so why not use that talent? For interns, this offers experience using what you've learned in school as well as a great project to put on your resume. For managers, you'll get something new and innovative to refresh whatever programming, etc that you're department is working on.
3. Opportunities for Improvement: This includes networking, extra training, community programs, etc where the intern can learn new ideas. Networking is very important when it comes time for the intern to be looking for jobs or other internships for the next semester. This can also benefit the organization as the intern can find new ideas or start collaborations with other organizations.

Those are the three main suggestions I have for improving internships. However, each program is different - has different resources, goals, etc. These are broad ideas and can be adapted for individual programs. I hope to share the results from my study in the next few months!